REMARKS TO THE ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE'S
NATIONAL LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
April 23, 1996
(Note: In presenting this address, the Deputy Attorney General
may have departed from the text, but she stands behind the text
as printed.)
Thank you for that warm introduction.
I want to speak to you today about the anti-terrorism bill
passed by the Congress last week. Before I do so, however, I
want to thank the ADL -- on behalf of the Attorney General and
the President -- for its support of this legislation and its hard
work in helping craft an effective and fair package of proposals
that balances law enforcement needs with protection of civil
liberties you have been wonderful participants. As you know, the
bill is not all the Administration hoped for, but I believe it
will go a long way towards protecting citizens of this nation and
the world from some of the unspeakable acts that we have seen
perpetrated in the recent past. I welcome the ADL's support for
the rule of law in this country.
I also want to acknowledge the tireless work of the three
distinguished members of Congress who are here with us today.
Without the efforts and cooperation of Chairman Hatch, Chairman
Hyde, and Congressman Schumer, this legislation would not have
been possible.
I want to address the anti-terrorism legislation today, but
I do not want to focus on it exclusively. Rather, I would like
to place the legislation in the broader context of what the
Department is already doing to combat terrorism, and in the
context of the rise in hateful rhetoric in our society which I
think has created the type of climate that allows such acts to
occur and makes anti-terrorism legislation an unfortunate
necessity.
There has been so much attention paid to terrorism recently
in the wake of the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings.
The attention is understandable, of course: Those tragedies
revealed that Americans are not immune from terrorism -- even
here at home. It is understandable also because the costs
exacted by terrorism are so high -- not just the psychic costs,
but the economic ones as well. Last Friday, for example, the
first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, we had to close a
number of federal buildings completely and evacuated others for
good parts of the day as a result of terrorist threats. These
actions alone -- not to mention the cost of investigating these
threats -- cost taxpayers untold millions of dollars. Finally,
the concern about terrorism is understandable because of the
recent legislative activity surrounding the issue.
But as understandable as all the attention is, it obscures
the fact that fighting terrorism has long been one of the Justice
Department's and federal law enforcement's highest priorities.
It is important for Americans to know that we are not new-comers
to this fight.
Department of Justice counter-terrorism activities.
The U.S. government fights terrorism in a number of ways:
through diplomacy; through economic sanctions; through covert
operations; through military intervention; and though law
enforcement. The Justice Department's role is primarily law
enforcement and intelligence gathering. Our mission is simple:
First, to prevent terrorism before it occurs; and second, should
an act of terrorism occur, to mount an immediate and overwhelming
investigative response to it.
As was demonstrated in the Oklahoma City and World Trade
Center cases, we take the second aspect of our mission very
seriously. The investigations in those cases were models of
cooperation and effectiveness. Clearly, however, the most
important aspect of our mission is preventing terrorist acts
before they occur. We do that in a number of ways:
1. Domestic Intelligence Gathering
First, as you know, one of the FBI's most important
responsibilities is collecting intelligence on suspected
terrorists in the United States.
2. The Visa Process
Second, the Departments of Justice and State also take steps
to prevent potential terrorists from coming to the United States
by denying them travel documents at U.S. diplomatic facilities
overseas.
3. Border Control
Third, the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) work together to stop illegal aliens involved in
terrorist activities by denying them entry to this country in the
first instance, and reentry when they leave and attempt to
return.
4. Extradition and Deportation from the U.S.
Fourth, we are also cooperating closely with other countries
to -- where appropriate -- extradite or deport suspected
terrorists. As one recent example, senior HAMAS leader Musa Abu
Marzook is currently the subject of an extradition proceeding in
New York, based on a request by the Israeli Government.
5. Extradition of Terrorist Suspects to the United States
Fifth, the United States has also successfully obtained the
return of a number of defendants in recent years who have been
prosecuted in the United States for acts of terrorism committed
against U.S. interests.
In February, 1995, for example, World Trade Center bombing
suspect Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was apprehended in Pakistan after an
intense international manhunt and returned to the United States
for trial on other terrorism charges.
In terms of extraditions, 1995 was a record year for the
FBI. In addition to Ramzi Yosuef, four other suspected
terrorists were returned to the United States. What these cases
demonstrate, above all else, is that if you commit terrorist acts
against American citizens or American interests, you will have no
where to hide. We will pursue you using all the tools we have at
our disposal and, sooner or later, we will bring you to justice.
While we're on the subject of pursuing international
terrorists, let me take a moment to address the purported apology
yesterday by Abbu Abbas for the murder of Leon Klinghoffer. Mr.
Abbas characterized this brutal killing as a mistake. Let me be
clear that the United States continues to condemn the crime and
that Mr. Abbas' statement in no way erases the horror of the acts
he set in motion.
6. Economic Sanctions: The International Emergency
Economic Powers Act ("IEEPA")
Another important mechanism that we have employed to combat
international terrorism is the application of economic sanctions
against terrorist groups. In January of last year, the President
invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act --
"IEEPA" for short -- against 12 groups that had committed acts of
terrorism in opposition to the Mideast peace process, including
Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The effect
of the sanctions was to block financial interests and property of
the groups within the United States.
7. International Technical Support and Training
Seventh, because cooperation is central to the fight against
international terrorism, we have expanded the technical support
and training in law enforcement methods and techniques that we
provide to foreign police and security personnel.
For example, following the recent series of deadly bombing
in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, FBI personnel accompanied other U.S.
Government officials on a priority trip to Israel to assess the
bombings and provide immediate technical and other assistance.
And, just yesterday, our Attorney General opened the
International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest which will
bring together police officers from all over Eastern and Central
Europe for training in fighting international crime, with
specific emphasis on terrorism and narco-trafficking.
8. Criminal Prosecutions
Finally, we combat terrorism by aggressively exerting our
jurisdiction over terrorist activities under existing criminal
counter-terrorism laws. Where once the U.S. had almost no
extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction, we are now able to assert
jurisdiction over a wide variety of overseas terrorist acts which
affect our U.S. interests.
We can, for example, now reach overseas acts of aircraft
hijacking and sabotage, hostage taking, and serious terrorist
assaults or murders of American nationals. Additionally, in
recent years the Department has focused particular attention on
developing jurisdiction relating to the terrorist use of
biological weapons, nuclear materials, and other weapons of mass
destruction.
Using these jurisdictions, it is our policy to undertake
criminal investigations of all extraterritorial acts which impact
on U.S. interests. Whenever possible, we will obtain an
indictment in federal court against the perpetrators. And
thereafter, U.S. agencies work with their counterparts throughout
the world in an effort to apprehend the indicted defendants.
Efforts to apprehend indicted defendants are often
painstaking and slow, but we are persistent and our memory is
long. The passage of time does not dim our ardor for the pursuit
of these international outlaws. In one case, a defendant was
successfully prosecuted in the Eastern District of New York for
terrorist crimes that he committed 19 years before. In June, the
trial of Omar Ali Rezaq is scheduled to begin in U.S. District
Court in the District of Columbia for an air piracy, resulting in
deaths, which he is alleged to have committed in the Middle East
in 1985. Three other defendants, who were apprehended overseas,
are set for trial this spring in the Southern District of New
York for their alleged conspiracy to blow up U.S. commercial
airliners in Asia.
The Current Anti-terrorism Legislation
It was against this backdrop of all this activity that we,
in late 1993, undertook a review of its overall statutory
authority to address terrorism. We found that our statutory
authority for addressing acts of terrorism which occur overseas
was well-developed and in need only of fine-tuning. In contrast,
we concluded that there was need to improve our ability to
address other aspects of terrorism including:
acts of international terrorism carried out within the
United States;
support from within the United States for international
terrorism; and
acts of domestic terrorism.
During the early months of 1995, the Administration proposed
two major items of terrorism legislation:
the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, submitted to
Congress in February, which addressed the remaining
areas of concern relating to our international
jurisdiction; and
the Antiterrorism Amendments Act of 1995, submitted to
Congress in May, which addressed primarily domestic
terrorism concerns.
Although we had hoped that Congress would act more swiftly
on these critically important measures, we are gratified that the
legislation which includes many of our proposals has now passed
Congress. Some of the key features which the Administration
proposed and which are included in the legislative package are:
comprehensive federal jurisdiction over acts of
international terrorism which occur in the United
States;
a new alien deportation procedures;
provision for the banning of all material support,
except medications and religious materials, to foreign
groups in the U.S.A.;
implementation of the international convention on the
marking of plastic explosives;
upgraded procedures to address the use of nuclear
materials, including byproduct materials, to carry out
acts of terrorism; and
more comprehensive protection for federal employees who
find themselves as potential targets of terrorist
activity.
Again, the bill does not contain everything the
Administration wanted, including emergency authority to undertake
electronic surveillance of terrorist suspects and a provision
involving taggants for the type of powder typically used in pipe
bombs. In addition, it does not provide the FBI additional
authority to wiretap multiple telephones that are used by a
single individual suspected of engaging terrorist activities.
The reason this provision is important is that phones follow
people, not vice versa.
Hate Speech
Before I end today, I would like to shift gears from the
responses to terrorism to a social and political phenomenon that
I view as a major contributor to the upswing in terrorism,
particularly domestic terrorism. That phenomenon is hate speech.
Wherever we turn, it seems, we are accosted by angry, vile,
violent rhetoric. From the political fringes and the mainstream
as well, increasingly few, I think, feel restrained in what they
say. This is a phenomenon of both left and right.
To be sure, strong rhetoric has always been a staple of
American political discourse. Yet the quality of discourse in
this country seems to me to have deteriorated in very significant
and potentially dangerous ways. For one, so much of today's
political rhetoric seems designed to demonize and dehumanize its
subjects rather than to illuminate issues. Policy disagreements
have given way to ad hominem attacks against political opponents.
There also seems to be much more rhetoric floating around
these days that not only dehumanizes its subjects, but also
condones, if not encourages, violence. The examples are many,
but I was particularly struck by a bumper sticker sold at gun
shows recently epitomizes the sentiments being expressed. It
reads: "FIRST LINCOLN; THEN KENNEDY; NOW CLINTON?".
We desperately need to take steps to return civility to our
national life because the consequences of this kind of angry
speech are all too great. For one thing, such speech is
incredibly polarizing, not just socially -- because it so pits
one group against another -- but also politically. Look at the
number of moderate legislators, from both sides of the aisle, who
have decided to give up public office this year. Virtually all
of them have cited as one of the reasons the angry tone of public
debate.
And there is another, more dangerous consequence of angry
speech -- one which we saw so tragically last fall in Israel.
There can be no doubt that the assassination of Yikzak Rabin was
made thinkable by the demonization of him in Israel's national
debate about the peace process. Radical elements opposed to
peace called him a traitor and burned him in effigy. Bumper
stickers called him an enemy of the people. He was called a
Nazi. Responsible voices in the opposition party did little to
discourage the hatred. And what would have been unthinkable in
that society happened.
The analogy to the bombing in Oklahoma City and to the
attacks on abortion clinics and to racially-motivated crimes is
clear and unmistakable. Speech that demeans; speech that
demonizes; speech that portrays fellow citizens as unworthy of
treatment as human beings; speech that suggests that violence is
an appropriate way to express opposition -- particularly when it
is legitimized by political and opinion leaders -- creates a
climate in which politically-motivated violence can flower.
In that climate, tragedies like that in Oklahoma City should
not be viewed as isolated events. Every day, reports cross my
desk of attacks or threats against federal workers, motivated,
one might presume, by animus toward the government. I see the
reports of racially-motivated violence. I read of the plans of
international terrorist groups motivated by religious zealotry.
I see the violence everyday.
Let me be clear. None of this is to say that people do not,
or should not, have the right to speak freely -- even in harsh
and angry terms. Open and robust debate benefits us all.
But with that right comes responsibility. Responsibility on
the part of the speaker and, more importantly, responsibility on
the part of those of us in the mainstream who hear such speech.
The government -- which can respond only to the consequences of
speech, not the speech itself -- has a limited role to play. It
really falls on us as individuals and communities -- even if we
may agree with what is motivating the speaker's concern -- to
make clear that speech that demonizes, speech that calls for
violence, speech that denies the humanity of one's opponents has
absolutely no place in our society.
Although the number of terrorist attacks against Americans
and United States interests abroad is not great, the potential
consequences are immeasurable. That is why the protection of our
nation and its people against the threat of terrorism, both at
home and abroad, is one of the most important missions of the
Department of Justice and why anti-terrorism legislation that we
are celebrating here today has been such a priority. When it
comes to international terrorism, I am confident that we are up
to the challenge. We will continue to aggressively investigate,
pursue, and prosecute suspects.
Domestic terrorism, however, is more threatening. It is
more threatening because it is we who are carrying it out. The
threat is closer. And it is more threatening because of what it
says about the conditions in our society that have given rise to
these unspeakable acts.
Thank you very much.